The heel flap was feisty and I was stubborn. It is not done, but it is on the straight and narrow and has every chance of turning out like the heel of the first sock. I gave a great post-battle sigh and put it away last night. Daylight – or what passes for daylight on a gray Pacific NW winter day – is definitely my best ally at this point: dark brown sock-weight yarn held with reinforcing nylon of same color done in a slip-stitch pattern on lovely Lantern Moon sock needles of same color!

“But,” you ask, “what went wrong in the first place? And the second and, heaven help you, the third place?”

First Mistake (good for a laugh): Began knitting 36 heel stitches back and for on two of the darling Lantern Moon sock sticks (which are only about 5”s long and I figured the stitches might slide off the back end if I tried to keep them all on a single needle – actually, of course, I was using 3 needles as I had a working needle as well) , knit about half and inch, had to set it down for a while, picked it up again and clean forgot about the 18 stitches on the second needle! knit up a very quick inch or so and became suspicious as the heel looked oddly narrow…..

Second Mistake (kinda felt like slapping myself): Stockinetting along on all 36 stitches for about an inch or so — something is not right, the heel now looks wide! Double-check the stitch count, re-check my notes (yep, 36 heel stitches), take out the other sock and look at the heel – it is clearly narrower than the one on my needles (am I knitting a sock for a duck?!), look at the directions (am using 2 sets of directions in order to get the texture patt I want in the right gauge), realize that I am supposed to be doing a slip-stitch patt not stockinette, oops….

Third Mistake (hold on to your needles, this one is killer): We’ll just move right ahead to the “something is not right” moment when the heel still looked wide even though careful re-re-checking told me that I was knitting the patt correctly and the heel looked like the picture in the book….what is that, Lord Peter Wimsey? If the heel flap I am knitting now is correct, then the heel on the first sock must be…aughhhhh! sure enough, the first heel has a tidy, dense, narrow flap done (quite erroneously) in a double-slip-stitch (i.e., slip one knit one across the first row, slip one purl one across the return row) which leads to….

The Dilemma (rather a short-lived one): Do I rip back the unusual, but actually quite serviceable finished sock (true, it is not completely finished, but the heel and most of the foot is done) and re-do the heel? Or do swallow my pride and knit the heel flap of the second sock in the double-slip-stitch method? Dark chocolate and a hot cup of coffee are fine accompaniments to a mouthful of pride!

On with the sock!